AUG Collaborative Project

It’s no surprise that the integration and use of technologies in the classroom have come with a laundry list of constraints and restrictions. Many schools are incorporating technologies that address the need for 21st century skills and, as a result, have come up with guidelines for their appropriate uses. We call them Acceptable Use Guidlines, or AUG. Using email, blogging or sites like Facebook, Google Docs, YouTube, Twitter, Wikispaces, and other online tools have the potential to promote communication, the sharing of information, and innovative instruction for students, but also have the potential invite misconduct. Therefore, the need to address issues related to respect, privacy, sharing, and safety have become paramount in the eyes parents, educators, school administrators, and politicians alike.

An Acceptable Use Policy(AUP) is a document created by a business, website, social media network, university, school or any institution that uses information systems accessed by many users. The goal of any AUP is to establish a set of rules or guidelines informing users of the ways the system may or may not be used. Usually, AUP's are put in place to protect the institution from legal action if the system is misused. For schools, AUP's also serve to protect students while accessing information. Many schools have one Acceptable Use Policy that covers all schools in the district, often containing language to safeguard younger students (as Duxbury's policy does) while other systems create school-specific or even instrument-specific documents. The links below provide examples of each type.